The integrity and preservation of the plat is an essential matter for Homeowners Associations. The above article can be found here: https://www.floridacondohoalawblog.com/2018/05/17/why-is-a-plat-so-important/ and the law referenced can be found here: http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0100-0199/0177/0177.html
So how good is your survey? Start with your Deed. If you do not have your Deed handy, you can find it here: https://pbcpao.gov/index.htm and then click on your OR Book/Page under Sales Information.
Deeds to properties at Crystal Key will reference a Lot and the Plat. The three pages below are from Plat Book 79. Or you can get them here: https://discover.pbc.gov/pzb/Plats/79.aspx
Note that the property dimensions are given in feet, with the specification to two decimal places.
The Private Road and the Utility Easement (UE) have no decimal places and could vary +/- 0.5 feet and still meet the legal description for the plat. The UE is part of the property.
The Private Road includes approximately 4 feet of sidewalk, 4 feet of land, 2 feet of gutter and 10 feet of actual road that is all together 20 feet to the center of the road and then mirrored on the other side to be 40 feet total. It is also know as the Right-of-Way (ROW). As the ROW is given as two 20 foot specifications, the overall variation for the 40 feet of ROW is determined by the square root of the sum of the squares and is +/- 0.7 feet (8.5 inches) that it can vary and still meet the legal description for the plat.
The original lots appear to have been designated by front corner pins. These pins do not necessarily mark the corner, but are a reference point for where that corner is. There will be a dimension North/South and another East/West that pinpoint the corner. You should be able to ask your surveyor to give you your the Corner Pin Dimensions. Some surveyors will come out for a fee and stake the corners for you.
I have a rectangular property and my purchase was the first survey of the lot. That surveyor dimensioned my front corner pins and set two rear corner pins and dimensioned them. I did not have the pin dimensions but checked the dimensions from the sidewalk to the point given in the survey for the back fence. And I checked the front and back yard dimensions similarly, which all showed to be good within and inch or so. Then I did this again as the boundary started to come in to question.
You can tell by aerial view of your lot, if the sidewalk is a good reference for evaluation of the ROW. The link at the top of the post also provides a map with a good aerial view with approximate boundaries that you can use to judge if there is any irregularity in the section of sidewalk by your house or not. Your surveyor may tell you that such is not valid surveying. But my lot’s survey was so badly compromised by corner pins all over the place at the rear boundary (the surveyor was actually laughing about it, then turned around and tried to use them to enforce his bad surveying), I asserted the sidewalk to be a reasonable reference check in my surveyors complaint and it was validated.
In addition to length, the lot is defined with a Bearing which is as an angle. Variation in this angle can also cause variation in the lot size. The Plot Plans for the rectangular lots for Crystal Key show N/S survey lines of 1.563 degrees from due north, this is 1 degree, 33 minutes and 47 seconds, more often shown as 1° 33′ 47″. The corners are all 90 degrees and the N/S bearing plus the E/W bearing add up to 90 degrees. The roadway in front of my home is of the E/W bearing and there is a marker in the middle of the roadway on the west side of my property. I verified that the dimensions of and within the ROW were within tolerances, using the sidewalks as reference.
The Building Permit files for all the lots have a Plot Plan which is just that, a plan of where the lot was to be and how the house was to be built upon it. The first page shows survey information and the second page shows a the plot plan.
An As-Built survey would show what was built. That was not done for the Crystal Key Plat.
The plat has a variety of monuments (markers) including those around the boundary of the plat. These are shown on the Plat and are translated to the Crystal Key aerial below. There are more to the northwest that are shown on the Plat for Tract B. :
The Permanent Markers should be documented and recorded as described in the plat record 76-082 (lower right corner) at the top of this post. The article below gives a good overview of how this is done.
You can also find the above article at: https://ncbels.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Survey-Ties-Guidelines-rev-09-20-2022.pdf
Florida Standards of Practice https://www.fdacs.gov/content/download/21300/file/5J-17.052.pdf
My plot plan shows my right corner to be tied to the corner of the property at the end of the street 153.69 feet away. My 2016 survey shows that as a platted value (taken from the plot plan). The pin location has since been destroyed by construction to the property line on the adjoining property. It is recommended that the Board review the Architectural Review Board procedures to insure that the preservation of survey markers be a condition of any approval for construction to the property line. Markers must be relocated and properly recorded by a Licensed Surveyor in order to preserve the plat and to comply with the law.
If you have seen the Final Orders from the Board of Professional Surveyors and Mappers on the challenge to my 2016 survey, you should understand that mortgage surveys are generally not of sufficient quality to construct to the property line. They can be used to establish a claim of title but they are not likely to stand up if you have to go to court to challenge an established title holder. If you are the established title holder, you will only need to get a survey that will stand up in court if someone else has such a survey and takes you to court. No reputable attorney will take your case for a claim against an established title holder, using a mortgage survey.
I would caution anyone constructing to the property line or adding a structure that has a requirement for a setback to the property line, to have a formal agreement with the owner of adjacent properties about where the boundary is and otherwise allow for a margin of error of approximately 0.5 feet for every 100 feet of property line (0.5%) based on the errors involved in my complaint to the Board of PSM. That would be 2.52 inches for a 42 foot property line and 6 inches for a 100 foot property line if a mortgage survey is used to set the boundary. I would recommend that this be managed by the Architectural Review Board.
I am NOT a professional surveyor or mapper, but a homeowner who works with surveys as a plan review engineer and I have a 100 foot surveyors tape that I can tell you how to use if you want to borrow it and measure where you think your property is. Pins are commonly located using a magnetic tool that I do not have at this time, but have been thinking about getting.
You have to know where your boundaries are if you want to hold the line.
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